I want to join in too. Were a family of four looking to move probably Juneish. I have a Lot of powdered milk, beans, noodles. When I checked the freezer I was surprised I found 5 packages of bacon. And 6 ham steaks. Also a huge bag of steel cut oatmeal. That my kids won't eat as oatmeal(help)

And the spaghetti sauce seams to have been multiplying in the cabinet when I wasn't looking.

What I've done: shop at home first, don't go to the store, get creative on kids school lunches(as much as I can and still have them eat it), eat leftovers for lunch, and instigate freezer night(a random container or containers gets pulled from the freezer and thsts dinner)

I'm learning to substitute too. I had plain yogurt and strawberry syrup for expresso and it worked.

I'm approaching this challenge slightly differently. My kitchen is tiny, and I don't buy in bulk, so I'm not worried about using up staples like rice and flour since I only have less than a packet on hand and cycle through it pretty quickly.

What I do want to do is get through all the random ingredients that have accumulated. You know, the saffron or bulghar or vanilla beans that you bought for a specific recipe and then just sit there because 'they'll keep' and they're not in your regular weeknight repertoire.

What I've done so far:Leftover cranberry sauce bought for a Christmas in July party got used as jam on toast over the last few weeks. Packet of frozen mixed vegetables (left behind by a house guest , don't really like) got thrown into a thai red curry with beef and peppers

On the agenda for today:Lamb and spinach curry (use up 2 packs of lamb from freezer)Coconut jelly (use up half tin coconut milk, plain gelatin my sister left here)Chai concentrate (use up end of molasses, cinnamon sticks, english breakfast tea no one drinks) Pasta sauce (heaps of antipasto left over from a party)

On the list for the next few weeks:More gelatinRice papers for rice paper rollsHalf a pack of corn thingsGluten free flourBulgharSoba noodlesDuck stock from freezerSausages from freezerFruit mince pies from freezerCan of borlotti beansGreen tomato chutney

Needed a fast lunch for ds10 -- cheese quesadilla. I still have 2 bags Costco size of tori tats to use.Ate my spicy bean soup with corn muffin in the car. I was late.Dinner spaghetti with mushrooms and olives. Yea

I figured out a sorta coffee creamer I'm ok alternating with the good stuff. 2/3 c powdered milk, 12 oz water, and expresso syrup to taste. Makes kinda a mock latte when mixed with my coffee in the morning or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Also needed treats for church. Used up a can of pumpkin and made a spice pumpkin sheet cake. Kids like it so it's good.

It's hard to think outside the box when I get pressed for time. I need to come up with a Clifbar substitute for weekends. Muffins?

It's been a week now since hubby and I jumped on the band wagon. We've done really well so far and have stuck to our budget of 100RMB for the week. Some of the things we did this week were: cooked a yummy meatless meal, had a leftovers night and we've completely cut booze out.

None of these things have been a challenge for me but my other half has struggled a bit. He is the cook in our household while I'm the one who...um....wears the moustache?! Haha! That sounds really weird. Anyway, it's been a challenge for him to break out of old habits and think differently about the food we eat. But hey, he's trying really hard and we've met our goal this week so that's great.

In the meantime, we've had yet another financial setback involving our escooter. I had an accident earlier this week involving another escooter and the police have confiscated both escooters until the investigation has been resolved (this is standard procedure in China). So we've been catching taxis to and from work because there is no bus that goes close to my workplace and I sustained an injury in the accident which has prevented me from walking too much. I was also unable to work at my weekend job because of the injury so I lost some income (1000RMB). Depending on the outcome of the investigation I may also have to pay for some of the medical costs for the other person involved in the accident. Not happy Jan! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2akt3P8ltLM

So even though I was only planning to join this challenge for 2 weeks, I may need to convince hubby to extend for a little while longer.

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"If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great." Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own

It's been a week now since hubby and I jumped on the band wagon. We've done really well so far and have stuck to our budget of 100RMB for the week. Some of the things we did this week were: cooked a yummy meatless meal, had a leftovers night and we've completely cut booze out.

None of these things have been a challenge for me but my other half has struggled a bit. He is the cook in our household while I'm the one who...um....wears the moustache?! Haha! That sounds really weird. Anyway, it's been a challenge for him to break out of old habits and think differently about the food we eat. But hey, he's trying really hard and we've met our goal this week so that's great.

In the meantime, we've had yet another financial setback involving our escooter. I had an accident earlier this week involving another escooter and the police have confiscated both escooters until the investigation has been resolved (this is standard procedure in China). So we've been catching taxis to and from work because there is no bus that goes close to my workplace and I sustained an injury in the accident which has prevented me from walking too much. I was also unable to work at my weekend job because of the injury so I lost some income (1000RMB). Depending on the outcome of the investigation I may also have to pay for some of the medical costs for the other person involved in the accident. Not happy Jan! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2akt3P8ltLM

So even though I was only planning to join this challenge for 2 weeks, I may need to convince hubby to extend for a little while longer.

Ouch! Hope you recover soon and that this is resolved quickly, with no more loss of income/bills.

It's all systems go here. Chai concentrate is delicious, just had some of the lamb curry for lunch, pasta sauce is in the freezer and the coconut milk jellies will be dessert tonight with some diced mango. mmmm.

I've even managed to get the man on board, and we cooked up a lovely dinner at his place last night using some wilty veggies from his fridge, sausages in danger of freezer burn and a fresh beetroot from the garden. Breakfast was scrambled eggs with some smoked salmon that needed to be eaten and that last few slices of bread from a loaf that I think had been there since January. He said it smelled like fridge water, but it toasted up ok :)

I thought I had a pretty minimalist pantry, but as I was cooking through my four dishes this weekend I kept finding other things I really should use up! So I have added to the above list: half jar butter chicken curry paste, huge jar turkish hot pepper paste, home made quince paste, a tub of cream (now in the freezer awaiting ideas) and more of those damn frozen vegetables.

My budgeting week ends tomorrow night, there is heaps left over, and I can't see myself needing to get ANYTHING at the shop before then, except perhaps 2 litres of milk for my boyfriend's place. Yay.

It's all systems go here. Chai concentrate is delicious, just had some of the lamb curry for lunch, pasta sauce is in the freezer and the coconut milk jellies will be dessert tonight with some diced mango. mmmm.

I've even managed to get the man on board, and we cooked up a lovely dinner at his place last night using some wilty veggies from his fridge, sausages in danger of freezer burn and a fresh beetroot from the garden. Breakfast was scrambled eggs with some smoked salmon that needed to be eaten and that last few slices of bread from a loaf that I think had been there since January. He said it smelled like fridge water, but it toasted up ok :)

I thought I had a pretty minimalist pantry, but as I was cooking through my four dishes this weekend I kept finding other things I really should use up! So I have added to the above list: half jar butter chicken curry paste, huge jar turkish hot pepper paste, home made quince paste, a tub of cream (now in the freezer awaiting ideas) and more of those damn frozen vegetables.

My budgeting week ends tomorrow night, there is heaps left over, and I can't see myself needing to get ANYTHING at the shop before then, except perhaps 2 litres of milk for my boyfriend's place. Yay.

Thanks for the sympathy SisterX and chasingthegoodlife. My injury is healing much fast than anticipated so I was able to combine walking and bus riding to get to and from work today. No money was spent on taxis. Woo! If my healing progresses at this rate I should be able to make it to my weekend job this Saturday. Double Woo!

Funny thing happened this morning when hubby went to make himself some breakfast. He has a habit of eating dinner leftovers for breakfast but I asked him to reconsider this habit during our pantry challenge because leftovers are more expensive per serve than a basic breakfast of toast and tea (plus, with a bit of imagination, leftovers can be revamped into a new meal the next evening).

So hubby opens the fridge and grabs the dinner leftovers out of habit. Then I heard him call out from the kitchen "you're in my head woman! I was just about to eat the leftovers for breakfast but then I heard your voice in my head saying toast and tea, toast and tea, TOAST AND TEA!" So he put the leftovers back and made himself some toast and tea. Bahahahahaha!! I must have some sort of mustachian-style Jedi mind trick capabilities.

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"If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great." Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own

I badly need to empty out my chest freezer because it needs defrosting, and slowly but surely I'm getting there. On Saturday I found a hambone from over two years ago. Yikes. But I also had chicken broth and I threw everything in the crockpot overnight. I cooked some Costco Normandy mix veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, baby and yellow carrots) in the broth, pureed everything with my immersion blender, and added back the meat from the hambone along with a couple of diced-up small ham steaks I also found in the freezer. Voila, faux split pea soup for lunch this week! We've on vacation next week but when we come back the Freezer Emptying Jihad is on!

Well, we re-filled our freezer last night, but all for the cause! The husband and I assembly lined a bunch of burritos (using a moose roast and part of our giant bag of rice we've had for over 2 years now, plus beans from the pantry) for quick lunches and dinners for crazy days.Still on track eating fish and haven't had to repeat a meal yet. I didn't realize we had collected so many salmon recipes. Even better, BabyX is learning to love salmon, and the (cooked) skins are going to the dog who is super happy about it, so we get to save a tiny bit on dog food.

Glad your feeling better and able too walk some now. Taxis are expensive.

I made a real use it up recipe tonight and my husband actually said he liked it. Yea! Leftover rice, leftover black beans, frozen onions, frozen peppers, frozen flour tortillas, a jar of enchilada sauce, the last of one container of taco seasoning And a pound of hamburger. They we good enchiladas. Leftovers for tomorrow. And two things of frozen meat mix to go into the freezer for opps I forgot dinner nachos.

I did well this morning too had a jar of Almond butter. The kids won't eat it. So I mixed the almond butter with a jar of peanut butter. The kids declared it good. So that's a win also.

But much to the children's dismay we are our of clifbars(ok they haven't found the emergency stash in the car)I found a 7lb bag of steel cut oats. What can I make besides oatmeal? HELP!

I found a 7lb bag of steel cut oats. What can I make besides oatmeal? HELP!

I toss a handful of oats in every time I make a smoothie. Anzac Brownies are one of the most amazing food ever: http://www.crew.coop/

Oatmeal cookies, Anzac Biscuits, topping for crisps, baked apples, thrown into ground meat to stretch it when making meatballs or hamburgers, ground into flour and subbed in for some of the flour when you make bread....I Love oats!

Shropskr, I am by no means an expert but if I were you I would cook or part-cook the steel cut oats before subbing them into recipes that you think can take the extra moisture (ie meatballs or a crisp will probably be ok, but a cookie recipe might not turn out).

A google for steel cut out energy bar recipe also threw up a lot of results - could you try using them to make your own cliff bar substitutes?

Turns out I didn't need to get milk, but picked up a block of butter after work as I need to make a dessert tonight for an upcoming get together. I could have subbed oil but baked goods just aren't the same without butter, IMHO.

I'm making some cranberry almond squares that will use up the last of the almond meal, sliced almonds, dried cranberries (soaked and subbed for fresh, hope it turns out!) and continue my mission of using up the not so great vanilla essence I've nearly finished. Trying to use it in recipes that don't depend on vanilla being the star.

We had the coconut milk jellies last night with some diced mango from a jar I found in the boyfriend's cupboard, they were really good and I'll definitely make them again when I have some coconut milk to use up.

Thanks chasingthegoodlife can't believe that I didn't even think to google what I wanted. I tried muffins, breads but with your suggestion I googled "mock peanut butter clif bars" and low and behold they even called for steel cut oats. LOL :) I had all the ingredients so I made up a batch the kids like them. Score...

While I was at it I turned some of my steel cut oats into oat flour. That I know how to use. Pancakes. Yum.

I'm off sick today and was craving some comfort take out food but pulled out some lonely leftovers from the freezer (chinese braised beef), heated up some roast pumpkin from the fridge, made some rice, and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds. It was warm and rich and didn't cost anything. Feeling virtuous now. And not all that sick anymore either.

I had a bag that I soaked overnight recently, and the next morning they were...oddd...the skins looked like they had split and bubbled. I ended up popping them out of their skins, throwing then in a crockpot with a smoked ham hock and made a soup. if the texture of the beans suck, buzz it up like I did :)

Great idea. I have a ham hock in my freezer awaiting to be made into soup. Maybe I'll do that this weekend :-)

I found a 7lb bag of steel cut oats. What can I make besides oatmeal? HELP[/b]!

I add oats to every bkaed good I make (muffins, pancakes,etc). I also use them on "power balls" or basically PB (or any other kind of nut butter) rolled in oats, wheat germ, pumpkin and/or flax seeds and really anything else you have on hand. They freeze well, are portable and my kids really love them too so they hardly last more than two days.

Our "pantry diet" (as my husband dubbed it) continues. This past week, we were traveling. We packed a bunch of homemade dehydrated meals from our backpacking box. At our airport layover, I asked for two cups of hot water at starbucks (which apparently they don't charge for! I did leave a tip though, as the line behind me was quite long), and 15 minutes later we had a hot pinto bean stew to eat, instead of roaming around and spending too much on airport food. Then, as part of our trip, we borrowed a car and camp gear from my parents and did a few days camping. We polished off several more of our meals (black beans, split pea soup, chickpea curry, white bean and garlic soup), plus some assorted nuts and raisins from the snack box. They were all easy to prepare (just add hot water, and some fat if you want to bump up the texture/flavor a bit), tasty, nutritious, and (best of all), CHEAP (including the electricity our average cost per meal-sized serving is just under $1).

Ugh. Now that some cool weather arrived, I was taking an inventory of my dried beans when I found that two old Tupperware canisters of beans had been invaded by a tiny insect--and I mean miniscule! Grains and beans in glass canning jars were just fine.

Fortunately I did not lose much but this is a good reminder to perform a steady rotation and keep a good inventory.

In the process of cleaning out the pantry, I found a packet of a mole sauce--best by Sept 30, 2014. I'll use that tonight.

Tomorrow I am making minestrone soup with all of the miscellaneous veg that is looking less than perky at the moment.

On a happier note, a friend gave me a bag of apples. Apple pie tonight!

Well cake cakes turned out to be more of crab rice. Tasted great though. Husband said we can try again. We have two more packages of frozen imatation crab

Saw the in laws today. Yea. They brought us a lot of fresh veg, eggplant, brusslesprouts, kale, peppers, tomatoes, chard, bochoy and more. So I'll be working around that to. My first thought. Italian wedding soup, get to use up that sausage, kale, frozen chicken carcasses, more noodles. Only thing I don't have is the parmizion cheese.(sub Monterey jack?)

Well, we re-filled our freezer last night, but all for the cause! The husband and I assembly lined a bunch of burritos (using a moose roast and part of our giant bag of rice we've had for over 2 years now, plus beans from the pantry) for quick lunches and dinners for crazy days.

SisterX, what does moose meat taste like? I'm curious.

Today marks the end of our second week of participating in this challenge. Once again, I'm really happy with what we've achieved with sticking to our budget of 100RMB. One of the meals we tried this week was a Thai red curry using smoked tofu as a meat substitute. It was really yummy, super cheap and there was so much of it we're going to have it again tonight (no dishes, yay for leftovers night!).

Before moving to China, I didn't know much about tofu and never really saw it as anything but some weird vegetarian food. My life in China has changed all that. The Chinese do amazing things with tofu. I particularly like smoked tofu and marinated tofu. The smoked tofu we bought for this recipe cost 2RMB. That's not even 50 Australian cents. I estimate the entire dish cost about A$4 and it will easily feed us for 2 nights. The red curry paste and coconut milk came from the pantry, as did the rice. The veggies and tofu were purchased fresh from the wet market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market#Chinese_Wet_Markets).

Update about my escooter accident: the police decided the accident was my fault, not because I was doing anything illegal but because I was the one overtaking at the time the accident occurred. It doesn't matter that the other escooter rider veered into me.....they have all the rights in this particular situation because they were the one being overtaken.

This means I have to pay compensatioin to the other escooter rider (who broke a bone in her shoulder by the way). After a week of negotiations it looks like I will have to pay 40,000RMB to settle this mess. This converts to more than A$7,000. This is obviously not the kind of outcome I was hoping for but there's little I can do about it except grit my teeth, pay up and get on with my life.

I see this as a temporary setback on my road to financial freedom, and if anything, plan to grow in my badassity skills so I can make the money back in no time. This whole experience also seems to have flicked a switch in hubby's brain too which will hopefully have some serious positive long-term effects on our ability to save.

« Last Edit: October 23, 2014, 03:54:54 PM by Staff Only »

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"If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great." Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own

Westofthehudson - let me know how it works out! I've got one more left in the fridge, might try it with some kiwi fruit.

I used up the half jar of butter chicken curry paste tonight with some chicken, peas, roasted cauliflower and rice. Roasted cauli with indian spices was a great success but the curry paste confirmed my existing bias that indian style curries are better with dry spices. It was kinda sweet and fakey tasting. BUT there are four more meals in the freezer for lunches/lazy nights.

A bag of choux and some pastry cream came out of the freezer last night for dessert with some fresh pear, and I'll use the rest of the pastry cream with some raspberries tonight. Enjoyed two of the fruit mince pies for dinner on Saturday night too, and the rest are at work for midweek snacks.

However, I am ashamed to say that, despite living alone and having a smallish two drawer freezer on the bottom of my fridge which I inventoried when I started this challenge, I just found something totally new in the freezer!?! WTF. A container with nine egg whites. How did I miss that? I feel some coconut macaroons coming on. Or should i think of my waistline and go some egg white omelets instead?

I made two batches of limeade last night to use up a container of lime juice.

Continuing to eat down our rice (made vegetable fried rice) and pasta (made pasta twice this weekend) stores. I used half a jar of gifted marinara sauce (usually make my own). I'll use the rest later this week.

I always think it tastes very similar to beef, then I eat beef and think, "Oh yeah, they're different." Moose is so lean that when it's ground, a bit of beef suet or pork lard (that one's good for burgers and meatloaf) is added in so that it doesn't just burn in the pan, so that accounts for a bit of the beefy taste.A moose roast, on the other hand, has nothing added. Depending on the age of the meat and how quickly the hunter got it to refrigeration it can be a little gamey, but nothing off-putting. It's hard to describe a taste, you know? But we use moose in any recipe which would normally call for beef. It can even be made into sausage, and now on the very rare occasions when I eat beef I think it tastes a little off. Moose is also a tougher than beef, since the animals actually lived lives where they needed to range and whatnot, so their muscles were used. But a long slow cook fixes that problem, at least in bigger cuts of meat.

Husband has put a halt on spending, since we did a big stock up at Winco this week. Now its time to eat from the pantry and freezers again! Hope to get my creative juices flowing again by reading the archives on this thread! Thanks for the inspiration!

This is a great thread! I'm working on moving out right now, so this is a goal I definitely need to meet.

My carnivorous SO is moving out in a week, so he needs to work through any meat before he goes. I'm not moving out until the end of November, but we did a big trip at Costco last month before we knew we were moving so soon, so I have a ton of stuff to get through on my own.

Any ideas on using frozen berries? I won't have a blender to make smoothies. I'm thinking about pies?

This is a great thread! I'm working on moving out right now, so this is a goal I definitely need to meet.

My carnivorous SO is moving out in a week, so he needs to work through any meat before he goes. I'm not moving out until the end of November, but we did a big trip at Costco last month before we knew we were moving so soon, so I have a ton of stuff to get through on my own.

Any ideas on using frozen berries? I won't have a blender to make smoothies. I'm thinking about pies?

Any ideas on using frozen berries? I won't have a blender to make smoothies. I'm thinking about pies?

My husband has also been mixing them into cottage cheese, and we use small frozen berries (blueberries, raspberries) in pancakes on the weekend. I also mix frozen blueberries into banana bread (I posted the recipe somewhere upthread) and use frozen cranberries in baked oatmeal (also posted that recipe).But, pies! Who doesn't love pie? :D

Ran out of time to make dinner. Planned boc choy, shrimp stir fry with rice, but dd7 homework meltdowns made it not happen. Tomorrow. Emergency pancakes(oat flour and wheat flour mixed) milk that was turning sour. Dear husband doesn't like pancakes so he got last nights spaghetti and meatball leftovers. I swear the spaghetti sauce is multipling in the cabinets I just keep finding more. Lol

Made a double batch of mock peanut butter clif bars as the kids ate all of the last batch. They wanted them with chocolate so I used m&m's that were left over from an event I went to earlier in the week.

Yesterday made pumpkin cupcakes, but I think I'm the one eating them all.

I have quite a few containers of apple sauce in the freezer and currently not eating sugar...maybe mixed into oatmeal for as many days in a row as I can stand?

I actually love mixing applesauce and a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg into my oatmeal. If I have them on hand, almonds or walnuts also get added. It's sweet but not too sweet, so I don't even miss sugar.

Doing really well. Made mooseloaf last night, used up some pasta earlier in the week, and tonight we're having some people over for dinner so I'm making smoked salmon linguine. It's a fancy (but easy) recipe that uses mostly what we already had on hand. Score!Going to a birthday party potluck tomorrow, so we'll use up some of our giant bag of chickpeas by making hummus and bring that.We have events coming up soon (potluck baby shower for friend, my daughter's 1st birthday party, family visits) which should help us use up a lot more really quickly. Never thought I'd be this happy to see food disappearing from our supplies so rapidly.

I always think it tastes very similar to beef, then I eat beef and think, "Oh yeah, they're different." Moose is so lean that when it's ground, a bit of beef suet or pork lard (that one's good for burgers and meatloaf) is added in so that it doesn't just burn in the pan, so that accounts for a bit of the beefy taste.A moose roast, on the other hand, has nothing added. Depending on the age of the meat and how quickly the hunter got it to refrigeration it can be a little gamey, but nothing off-putting. It's hard to describe a taste, you know? But we use moose in any recipe which would normally call for beef. It can even be made into sausage, and now on the very rare occasions when I eat beef I think it tastes a little off. Moose is also a tougher than beef, since the animals actually lived lives where they needed to range and whatnot, so their muscles were used. But a long slow cook fixes that problem, at least in bigger cuts of meat.

Thanks for the description SisterX. I hope I get to try it someday.

It's the end of week 3 of our pantry challenge and our cupboards are very bare indeed. When it came to lunch yesterday I was wondering what on earth we could eat. Then I noticed an unopened jar of basil pesto in the cupboard so I grabbed it and whipped up some toast pizzas. I threw 4 slices of bread into the toaster, then spread basil pesto on them as a base, sliced up half a tomato I found in the fridge and arranged the slices on the toast then picked a few leaves of basil from our balcony garden and arranged them on top of the tomato and then cut up 2 slices of cheese singles and placed little squares of cheese on top of the basil leaves so they wouldn't burn. Threw them under the grill for a few minutes et voila! Hubby was very impressed. Had them again for lunch today. Yum!

We will continue with the challenge until the end of this coming week (31st of October). We've already sat down and worked out a budget going forward which we've never really done before. We're not big spenders normally so there's never been a real need to do so. But now that we have this unexpected accident compensation we have to pay, I think it's time for us to analyse our situation and make some changes.

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"If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great." Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own

Wow, the ideas being presented are awesome! I am in for Nov/Dec. Goal is to only spend $200/month.

Motivation reasons:- We have been spending nearly $700/mo since April for a family of 4 (not good). Our 2015 goal is $550/mo so I need to get our mindset in place now.- Our freezer is full of random meats, veggies, pre-made meals. Age of some is quite unknown, and a little scary....- Our pantry is overflowing (I am a sucker for sales, regardless if there are 10 packages of the item already in the house)- We have a 1/4 cow coming in February, plus need freezer room for Turkey stock-up. - Our waistlines need to shrink. :-)

I hosted dinner for 17 last night and cooked WAY too much food (menu of fajitas), so today I'm going to take the leftover rice/beans/beef/shredded cheese and make individual burritos for the freezer. I wrap them in wax paper and they are super convenient to grab for lunches or quick dinners. The beef is from a local farm and I slow-cooked it all day yesterday so it's super tender and flavourful.

My freezer/pantry stockpile is getting a bit ridiculous, so I really need to maximize use of what I already have, rather than purchasing more.

Had some family over yesterday and made a dutch ginger butter cake which went down very well. They brought food too so now I have plenty of leftovers for the next few days.

Also roasted some beetroot from the garden and garlic which will mix with the greek yogurt in my fridge to make a dip. No crackers on hand so I might have to make some. I made this rosemary flatbread in the past and it was nice and easy but not as crisp as I expected (likely due to user error :)) http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/08/crisp-rosemary-flatbread/

Planning a kimchi fried rice using some more of those frozen veggies and half a tub of kim chi from the fridge. Got some miso and tofu as well so will make a little soup to go on the side.

Was telling my mum about the challenge and she is looking at doing something similar. Her cupboards and freezer are packed so I bet she could do wonders.

So tonight I'm going to prep this sweet potato and spinach bake for tomorrow's dinner. I defrosted a package of frozen spinach last week and didn't end up using it, and I have some sweet potatoes that are starting to get a bit soft, so I think this will be perfect. I'm debating serving it with a pork tenderloin (I have several in the freezer).